The Metapedia article on Anti-Semitism is very good. On the etymology of “anti-semitism”:

originally invented in 1860 by a liberal Jew named Moritz Steinschneider,[1] the son of a Talmudist born in Moravia. In its initial coining, it was applied in a criticism of Ernest Renan’s contrast of Semites and Indo-Europeans, though at this stage was in a wider more general context than just opposition to Jewishness. It was the socialist Wilhelm Marr who popularised the term in the 1870s with his League of Anti-Semites

Renan posited that the Indo-European and Semitic races had created superior civilisations to the African and Amerindian races, but since the coming of Christianity, the Indo-Europeans had entirely eclipsed the Semites.[4] He contrasted the contemporary creative ability, discipline and political organisation of Indo-Europeans with what he regarded as the sensuous, parasitic and unimaginative nature of the Semites.

Joseph Sobran, National Review, 16 March 1992:

An “anti-semite” in actual usage, is less often a man who hates Jews than a man certain Jews hate. The word expresses the emotional explosion that occurs in people who simply can’t bear critical discourse about a sacred topic, and who experience criticism as profanation and blasphemy.

Count Cherep-Spirodovich, The Hidden Hand, 1925:

Are we going to let our world be destroyed so as not to offend a tiny number of people who accuse us of anti-Semitism to cover up the crimes they are committing against us?

Today he is considered one of the most important exponents of modern anti-Semitism. Just how important a role he may have played is described in a book by Prof. Moshe Zimmermann of Hebrew University of Jerusalem with the title Wilhelm Marr, the Patriarch of Anti-Semitism.

The podcast will be broadcast and available for download on Tuesday at 9PM ET.

One Response

“Are we going to let our world be destroyed so as not to offend a tiny number of people who accuse us of anti-Semitism to cover up the crimes they are committing against us? — Count Cherep-Spirodovich, The Hidden Hand, 1925 (paraphrased)”

FYI ~ The original source is an older John Kaminski article and is self-explained: